Airport ’77

Airport ’77

Yes sir, the plane was already down. At the bottom of the Bermuda Triangle. It was a 747 out of Washington, bound for Florida and a press conference with James Stewart: millionaire art collector. You see, it had all these priceless paintings on board, and a gang of hijackers sprayed sleeping gas through the ventilation system and took over. But then they crashed into the Bermuda Triangle and sank intact fifty feet below sea level and now everybody’s running out of air.

So Airport ‘77 isn’t just a remake of the first two Airport movies, but also of The Poseidon Adventure. For another couple bucks they could have thrown in Run Silent, Run Deep.” It is a big glossy entertainment; no brain is required; it moves quickly from one preposterous situation to another with obnoxious confidence.

It has most of the obligatory characters for this sort of movie: The pilot (of course), played by Jack Lemmon this time; and the stewardess he’s having an affair with (Brenda Vaccaro); and then there’s Christopher Lee as an international arms merchant (he wants to steal those paintings) and Joseph Cotten as an ex-Nazi scientist.

Cotten has been hiding ever since World War II in his own private yachts along with his mad wife Olivia de Havilland; they rendezvous at sea with Lee aboard his yacht on Christmas Eve while Lee is smuggling weapons disguised as Christmas presents. I forgot something? Oh yes there’s Robert Foxworth as Cotten’s son in law.

While all these people are trying desperately to be drowned or blown up or sucked into the ocean through a hole in the fuselage, we get all those obligatory scenes where their lives flash before their eyes. This gives Airport ‘77 more flashbacks than any movie in history except maybe Gone With the Wind.

I don’t want to be entirely negative about it I sort of enjoyed it, as much as you can enjoy a movie that is entirely predictable from beginning to end. The characters are so firmly established in our memories (aren’t we rather fond of Joe Patroni by now?) that they become like family friends, and when Dick Lerner is swept out of the airplane into the sea it’s sort of like losing Aunt Minnie. But then Jack Lemmon dives into the ocean and saves him.

Movies like this are critic-proof. What can you say? It’s not “Reds”? You gotta take ’em on they’re own level, and finally they’ve made one thirty feet under.

Nonetheless, our group had a different plan. Create the most interesting concept and you could be the winner. Write us the plot for “Airport ‘79.” There are two plots that cannot be used because they have already been used: (1) A plane can’t be in the air and not able to land, and (2) a plane can’t be at the bottom of the ocean. The pilot could either be Dean Martin, Charlton Heston or Jack Lemmon.

There does not necessarily have to be a singing nun on the passenger list. Keep your entries down to 50 or 100 well chosen words, and send them to “Airport 79”, The Sun Times, 401 N. Wabash, Chicago 60611. We will print the winning entries in Show. Also, whoever writes the best sequel gets Erich Segal’s “Oliver’s Story,” which is considered as one of history’s worst sequels.

Watch Airport ’77 For Free On Gomovies.